January 2015

2014 was a really busy year for us, which is obvious because I had no time for this thing.  But in a nutshell here was our year (just to keep it somewhere so I can look back on it).

February: We celebrated Nick's 32nd birthday, though he thought he was turning 33!  It was a bit of a relief to him that he was only turning 32.

April: Evy got a cold and wound up in the respiratory unit for 5 days. She was on oxygen and antibiotics and steroids and fluids. She was so sick, but this was the shortest hospital stay she's had thus far!

May :We flew out to Baltimore to visit Morgan (my brother) and his girlfriend who were both graduating with their Master's Degree in Education from Johns Hopkins University. Wow were we proud of him! It was really great to see where they lived and worked and to see the east coast! We traveled around a bit, went to Washington D.C. and visited the Smithsonian, saw the Lincoln Memorial and walked around taking in the sights.  We went to visit Nick's childhood home and even met up with some of his friends from when he lived in Virginia. We drove through a tornado in Delaware (just missed us!). Then stayed a night in North Carolina and went to Topsail Beach, which was just gorgeous. The kids loved the beach.  Then we drove back to Baltimore and spent another couple of days talking with Morgan and Emily, and playing with Brodie (their dog).

About a week later Nick graduated with his Master's Degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Colorado @ Denver. I was so proud of him. He did it all through Evy's hospital stays even!

July-September:  While the kids and I went to Vail with my mom, Nick interviewed for a job with Geosolutions, which is an engineering company, and they hired him on as a project engineer.  When we got home from Vail, he worked 4 days in the office and then we packed up all of the necessities and headed off to California for his first project.  The kids and I stayed with him for 6 weeks and then decided to come home, but not before we had the most wonderful trip.  Nick got a 4 day weekend and we drove up to Redwood National Forest and saw the Trees of Mystery and the fern forest, and drove our car through a giant Redwood tree.  It was such a memorable trip. We hiked and took pictures and admired the beauty and majesty of it all. I hope I will never forget how I felt walking among the giants. We also went on a speed boat tour and saw lots of wildlife. We saw a golden eagle (which is really rare to see!), many other bird species, a black bear and lots of sea lions and giant salmon. It was such a fun ride, though Evy didn't much care for the wind and fell asleep for most of it.  Then from there we drove up into Oregon and watched sunset on the beach, which was breathtaking.  We had so much fun on that trip and it was kind of a letdown to leave and go back to reality.

August: I started back to school with an online class through UCD.

September: When the kids and I got back to Colorado, we stayed at Nick's parents house and I got to work trying to find us somewhere to live. Because the Denver area is incredibly expensive, we decided to look outside of the greater Denver area and found a beautiful 4 bedroom home in Brighton, Colorado.

November: I turned 26 on the 4th and on the 5th we closed on our home!  We moved in the next day and on the 7th Nick moved to Florida to start his next project.  The kids and I spent most of November sick, but it was cold outside anyways so we just stayed in and cuddled.

December:  We had a lovely Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with Nick's family and Reina, Mafer and Kalid with tamales and enchiladas and tortilla soup for dinner.  We stayed the night and wrapped presents, then woke up early to open them. The kids had lots of fun! Then uncle Morgan missed his flight, so we stayed one more night with the Sanchez' and played games with Arisa, Adam and Ramel while we drank atole. Mmmmm.  Then we went to my parents' house to have a turkey dinner and hang out with Morgan and open presents. The kids both got bikes from grandma and grandpa!

It's been a busy year with graduations, trips, a new job and a new house! We look forward to 2015!